The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-Ran, translated by Gene Png

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? Aside from the hot pink cover, I was drawn to the prospect of a vampire tale and the hospital as hunting ground.

Why not 3 or more stars? Detective Su-Yeon investigates a spree of suicides among a hospital’s older patients and encounters Violette, a vampire-hunter who suspects foul play. The Midnight Shift toggles between Su-Yeon’s story and the struggles of one of the hospital’s nurses, while doling out Violette’s back story in fragments. Though entertaining, the novel lacks in vampire lore to round out the narrative, and our characters remain one-dimensional to a conclusion befitting of the CW.

Suite Française by Irène Némirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith

4/5 stars

What's it about? This vivid and human account of the Nazi occupation of France is made all the more potent by the fact of the novel’s publication long after the author’s death at Auschwitz.

How’d I find it? Suite Française appears on “best of” lists, and I had to check it out.

Who will enjoy this book? Fans of Kristin Hannah’s work and Anthony Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See should like this one.

What stood out? Suite Française collects two of a planned five-part series unfinished by Némirovsky; the work she was able to complete captures war in the intimate details of individuals trying to survive. The edition I read concludes with Némirovsy’s notes on the project, as well as heartbreaking correspondence that describes her deportation and disappearance.

Which line made me feel something? “Yet this music, the sound of this rain on the windows, the great mournful creaking of the cedar tree in the garden outside, this moment, so tender, so strange in the middle of war, this will never change, not this.”

Ultramarine by Mariette Navarro, translated by Eve Hill-Agnus

5/5 stars

What's it about? An accomplished ship captain impulsively allows her crew to swim in the sea, and everything that comes after goes awry. Most concerning: the voyage started with twenty sailors—now there are twenty-one. An eerie page-turner.

How’d I find it? I picked up a few titles from a display of short reads at Powell’s, and all have been bangers. Admittedly, this cover played no small role in my purchase.

Who will enjoy this book? The disjointed narrative and dreamy prose of Ultramarine recall Julia Armfield’s Our Wives Under the Sea.

What stood out? Mariette Navarro knows what she’s doing. The shifting realities of Ultramarine keep the reader tense, but the siren effect of its atmospheric language make the discomfort worthwhile. That uneasiness lingers, even though the book is brief and can be consumed in one captivated sitting. The ocean is very scary.

Which line made me feel something? A representative example of Navarro’s beautiful writing: “They’ve left the sounds of the earth and of the surface: they discover the music of their own blood, a drumming to the point of jubilation, percussion that could lead them to a trance. Dark sound of held breaths, symphony of lightness.”

Overstaying by Ariane Koch, translated by Damion Searls

4/5 stars

What's it about? The narrator lives in her childhood home alone and can’t quite rouse herself to leave the small town where she grew up. She becomes fascinated by a visitor and invites him to stay, and before long the visitor consumes her whole existence. Funny, trippy, and endlessly strange.

How’d I find it? I love this influencer for translated book recs. She knows what’s up.

Who will enjoy this book? Overstaying embraces absurdity and tension in the manner of Samanta Schweblin. In fact, the fluidity of interiors reminds me of Seven Empty Houses.

What stood out? The narrator’s sense of humor makes this bizarre tale more fun than creepy, quite a feat when the visitor with his furry “brushfingers” mutates and evolves the longer he lingers. Overstaying fills inertia with small horrors (how I loved the sentient vacuum cleaners) and completes its sense of claustrophobia with short, choppy chapters. Koch pulls off an immersive mirage of a book.

Which line made me feel something? This tidbit had me laughing out loud: “It’s all the same to me whether or not he’s planning to poison the neighbor children. They’re all right, because they’re small, but then again they’re not that small; now that I think about it, they have chubby thighs.”

Sun City by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal

3/5 stars

What's it about? The residents of the Berkeley Arms in St. Petersburg, Florida squabble, fret, and weather the realities of aging and retirement in this trim, breezy novel.

How’d I find it? This came in the mail as the monthly selection of the NYRB Classics Book Club.

Who will enjoy this book? Sun City tackles the humor and distress of older adulthood à la Helene Tursten (without the murder).

What stood out? The novel shifts between the perspectives of its many characters, lending depth to the daily humdrum of life. I was particularly drawn to the formidable Mrs. Rubinstein, whose sharp tongue and sway over her retirement community make her a delight to accompany, and Linda, an adored employee of the Berkeley Arms whose boyfriend impatiently awaits the next coming of Jesus.

Which line made me feel something? “Afterward, Miss Frey thought she had been lost, but sometimes even then she would secretly indulge a wonder and a daydream that had to do with the beauty of emptiness and extinction.”

The Suicides by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? I mention the NYRB Classics Book Club enough for it to be the obvious source.

Why not 3 or more stars? A reporter investigates a story on the nature of suicide, haunted by the realization that he’s approaching the same age at which his father took his own life. Written in 1969, this circular and dark novel proves to be a tough read thanks to the narrator’s constant mistreatment of women and generally obnoxious company. Photographer Marcela offers an interesting foil, and I would have preferred to read a whole book about her.

On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara Haveland

4/5 stars

What's it about? Tara Selter wakes up every morning to November 18th, and nothing she tries ever seems to propel her out of the time trap. A trim, melancholic novel on the mystery of existence.

How’d I find it? I read an excerpt from this novel in Harper’s had to pick up a copy to read the rest.

Who will enjoy this book? This blends the dreaminess of Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, the enigma of Hervé Le Tellier’s The Anomaly, and the domestic focus of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

What stood out? This book is the first in a series of seven, and I appreciated its metaphysical musings in the form of Tara’s daily journal. We enter the story on her 122nd iteration of November 18th and follow as she tries to lure her confounded husband to her aide, develops an obsession with the night sky, and logs how her continued presence diminishes the resources of the day. On the Calculation of Volume is about time in such a way that you feel time while reading it.

Which line made me feel something? “The unthinkable is something we carry with us always. It has already happened: we are improbable, we have emerged from a cloud of unbelievable coincidences.”

The Rest Is Silence by Augusto Monterroso, translated by Aaron Kerner

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? The NYRB Classics Book Club, of course.

Why not 3 or more stars? This takedown of Mexico’s literary elite comes in the form of a collection of ephemera about the self-important (and fictional) critic Eduardo Torres, darling of the town of San Blas. The book’s wry humor (including excerpts from Torres’ vacuous writing) excels, but the gag tires out early.

The Frog in the Throat by Markus Werner, translated by Michael Hofmann

3/5 stars

What's it about? Dairy farmer Klement shunned his son Franz after an affair cost Franz his family and position as a clergyman, and they remained estranged until Klement’s death. Now Franz is being haunted by his father, who manifests as a literal frog stuck in his throat for three days every month, never letting Franz forget his shame.

How’d I find it? As ever, the inimitable NYRB Classics Book Club.

Who will enjoy this book? During my reading session, I was reminded of the humor and absurdity of Milan Kundera and the themes of Neil Gaiman’s work.

What stood out? Werner inhabits the two voices of this book so completely. Chapters vacillate between the self-flagellating Franz reliving his sins and Klement milking his cows while airing his disappointment with the changing world around him. The Frog in the Throat has more to say about time and being human than most books twice its length, and does so in a uniquely dark way.

Which line made me feel something? “So or so or any old how, we live for moments and everything withers at a dismaying pace, and the fact that my clothes will outlive me only underlines the misery of it all, while the bells chime brightly and the organ is as dignified as the obituary, the worms bestir themselves, I ventilate.”

Underground by Haruki Murakami, translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Philip Gabriel

2/5 stars

How’d I find it? My spouse and I spent our honeymoon in Japan, and I borrowed this book from one of his stacks. I am new to Murakami, having only read Norwegian Wood.

Why not 3 or more stars? Murakami compiles interviews with survivors and witnesses of the sarin gas attack on several Tokyo subway trains in March 1995, contrasting them with views from individuals linked to Aum Shinrikyo, the cult that perpetrated the terrorist act. Murakami gestures at the social and cultural context of modern Japan which made the tragedy possible, but a more profound excavation fails to materialize in this journalistic endeavor.